Problems Associated with Spam
Author: Jerry Benton

The huge surge in e-mail traffic due to spamming practices has taken a toll on the systems that process Internet traffic and e-mail as well as the people involved. More e-mail means more bandwidth. It also means more storage space on e-mail servers and increased internal and external network bandwidth. When the frustration of trying to filter out legitimate e-mail by each and every user is added to the equation, the problem of spam becomes nightmarish. And to make a bad situation worse, volumes of e-mail that are addressed to users that do not exist generate Non-Delivery Reports (NDR) to senders that do not actually exist. These NDR’s then start to consume mail queues on e-mail servers and can literally cause a server to crash by consuming all available hard drive space.

The problems with spam don’t stop at the technical aspect either. Network users are often confused by spam. For example, a user once contacted the help desk about an email he had received. Apparently, he had won the Global Internet Lottery for a million euros. Excited by his new found wealth, he was desperate for the help desk to assist him in collecting the booty. Obviously, there is no such thing as a Global Internet Lottery and if there was, you would more than likely have to enter into the contest to win. Scams like these are what constitute a large amount of spam. People that are duped into believing they have won often send a “processing fee” to the scammer and eventually find themselves the victim of fraud. Other forms of spam use tactics called phising. Phising is nothing more than trying to pry valuable information from Internet users such as bank account information, credit card numbers, PINs, or social security numbers. This is often done by including HTML form fields in emails or script tags. Other emails impersonate legitimate businesses such as banks or other online financial outlets such as PayPal. For example, a user could receive an email from a scammer posing as PayPal. The email will usually ask the user to update their password or other personal information. If the user clicks on web links within the e-mail, the user is more than likely taken to a fraudulent PayPal site that looks exactly like the real PayPal site. When the user tries to login to the site, the user’s login information is recorded and the scammer can then use it to access the victim’s account.

Although large volumes of spam are clever attempts to commit fraud, others are simply advertisements. But what makes an e-mail advertisement spam is that the recipient didn’t ask to be a part of this advertisement mailing list. So, even if someone registers some newly purchased software with the company that made it, the user can easily find themselves on future mailing lists of that company. What can make it even worse is if that company shares or sells e-mail addresses with associates. And it’s not just the young and struggling companies that might find themselves tempted to use dubious tactics. For example, Yahoo! Messenger once used what I considered tasteless tactics. While installing this piece of software the user was presented with multiple “Next” screens. Knowing that most Internet users just click the “Next” button without really reading the text, the developers of the install program engaged in what I consider subtle trickery to add the user to e-mail marketing lists. Most programs that require an email address during the install process give the user the option to opt out or in to mailing lists. The Yahoo! Messenger program did do just that, but the option was buried at the bottom of one of the “Next” screens. If the user didn’t scroll to the bottom of it, the user would never see the option. Also, if the user chose an express install instead of a custom install the option was not presented.

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